The Rancher's Christmas Song. RaeAnne Thayne

from Monet?

      Though it had been four years since she died—and five since she had lived with him and the twins—Stephanie’s words and others she had uttered like them seemed to echo through his memory. They had lost their sting over the years, but, boy, had they burned at the time.

      He sighed. Though the two had similar blue-blood backgrounds and educations, Ella Baker looked nothing like his late wife. Stephanie had been tall, statuesque, with red hair she had passed on to their sons. Ella was slim, petite and looked like an exotic blonde fairy.

      Neither of them fit in here, though he had to admit Ella tried a hell of a lot harder than Stephanie ever had. She had organized this event, hadn’t she?

      He should probably stop staring at her. He would. Any moment now.

      Why did she have to be so damn beautiful, bright and cheerful and smiling? Every time he saw her, it was like looking into the sun.

      He finally forced himself to look away so he could do as she asked, quite justifiably. He should have been keeping a better eye on the boys from the beginning, but he’d been sucked into a conversation about a new ranching technique his friend Justin Hartford was trying and lost track of them.

      As he made his way through the crowd, smiling at neighbors and friends, he was aware of how alone he was. He had been bringing the boys to these community things by himself for nearly five years now. He could hardly believe it.

      He was ready to get out there and date again. The boys had somehow turned seven, though he had no idea how that happened.

      The truth was, he was lonely. He missed having someone special in his life. He was tired of only having his uncle and his brothers to talk to.

      Heaven knows, he was really tired of sleeping alone.

      When he did jump back into that whole dating arena, though, he was fairly sure it wouldn’t be with a soft, delicate music teacher who didn’t know a mecate from a bosal.

      It might be easier to remember that if the woman wasn’t so darned pretty.

      In short order, he found the boys on the stage and convinced all of them it was time to find their parents and take their seats, then led his own twins out of trouble.

      “Hey, Dad. Guess what Thomas said?” Colter asked, as they were making their way through the crowd.

      “What’s that, son?” He couldn’t begin to guess what another seven-year-old might pass along—and was a little afraid to ask.

      “His dog is gonna have puppies right before Christmas. Can we get one? Can we?”

      He did his best not to roll his eyes at the idea. “Thomas and his family have a miniature Yorkie that’s no bigger than my hand. I’m not sure a little dog like that would like living on a big ranch like ours with all our horses and cattle. Besides, we’ve already got three dogs. And one of those is going to have her own puppies any day now.”

      “Yeah, but they’re your dogs. And you always tell us they’re not pets, they’re working dogs,” Trevor said.

      “And you told us we probably can’t keep any of Sal’s puppies,” Colter added. “We want a puppy of our very own.”

      Like they didn’t have enough going right now. He was not only running his horse and cattle ranch, the Broken Arrow, but also helping out Curt Baker at his place as much as possible. He had help from his brother and uncle, yeah—on the ranch and with the boys. He still missed his longtime housekeeper and nanny, Judy Miller, who was having double–knee replacement and would be out for six months.

      Adding a little indoor puppy into the chaos of their life right now was completely unthinkable.

      “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said firmly but gently.

      “Maybe Santa Claus will bring us one,” Colter said, nudging his brother.

      At seven, the boys were pretty close to understanding the truth about Santa Claus, though they had never come right out and told them. Every once in a while he thought they might know, but were just trying to hang on to the magic as long as possible. He was okay with that. Life would be full of enough disappointments.

      He was saved from having to answer them by the sight of beautiful Ella Baker approaching the microphone.

      “Hey! There’s Miss Baker,” Trevor said, loudly enough that she heard and looked in their direction.

      Though families had been encouraged to attend the event and it was far from a formal concert, Beck was still embarrassed by the outburst.

      “Shh,” he said to the boys. “This is a time to listen, not talk.”

      “Like church?” Colter asked, with some measure of distrust.

      “Sort of.” But more fun, he thought, though of course he couldn’t say to impressionable boys.

      Trevor and Colter settled into their seats and Beck watched as Ella took the microphone. He figured he could watch her here without guilt, since everyone else’s eyes were on her, too.

      “Welcome, everyone, to this fund-raiser for the music program at the elementary and middle schools. By your presence here, it’s clear you feel strongly about supporting the continued success of music education in our schools. As you know, programs like ours are constantly under the budget knife. Through your generous donations, we can continue the effort to teach music to the children of Pine Gulch. At this time, it’s my great pleasure to introduce our special guests, all the way from northern Montana. Please join me in welcoming J. D. Wyatt and his Warbling Wranglers.”

      The introduction was met with a huge round of applause for the cowboy singers. Beck settled into his chair and prepared to savor the entertainment—and prayed it could keep his wild boys’ attention.

      * * *

      He shouldn’t have worried. An hour later, the band wrapped up with a crowd-pleasing, toe-tapping version of “Jingle Bell Rock” that had people getting up to dance in the aisle and in front of the small stage.

      His twins had been utterly enthralled, from the first notes to the final chord.

      “That was awesome!” Colter exclaimed.

      “Yeah!” His twin glowed, as well. “Hey, Dad! Can we take fiddle lessons?”

      Over the summer, they had wanted to learn to play the guitar. Now they wanted to learn the violin. Tomorrow, who knows, they might be asking for accordion lessons.

      “I don’t know. We’ll have to see,” he said.

      Before the twins could press him, Ella Baker returned to the mic stand.

      “Thank you all again for your support. Please remember all proceeds from ticket sales for tonight’s performance, as well as our silent auction, will go toward funding music in the schools. Also, please don’t forget tomorrow will be the first rehearsal for the Christmas show and dinner put on by the children of our community for our beloved senior citizens at The Christmas Ranch in Cold Creek Canyon. This isn’t connected to the school and is completely voluntary. Any students ages four to sixteen are encouraged to join us.”

      “Hey. That’s us!” Trevor said.

      “Can we do it, Dad?” Colter asked, with the same pleading look on his face he wore when asking for a second scoop of ice cream. “We wanted to last year, remember? Only you said we couldn’t because we were going to visit our Grandma Martin.”

      That had been a short-lived visit with Stephanie’s mother in Connecticut, who had thought she would enjoy taking the boys into the city over the holidays and showing off her grandsons to her friends. After three days, she had called him to pick up the boys ahead of schedule, sounding ages older than she had days earlier. She hadn’t called again this year.

      “Can we?” Trevor persisted.

      Beck didn’t know how to answer as items on his massive